› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Franklin D Roosevelt's grandfather Warren Delano made a fortune smuggling opium into China around the time of the first Opium War

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OGkBL TIL: Ancient Chinese Toys (400 BC) Inspired Modern Helicopters. A stick with feathers at the end was rapidly spun between the hands to generate lift and then released into free flight. In 1754, Lomonosov developed a rotor modeled after the Chinese top, but powered by a wound-up spring device.
KODYQ TIL Chainsaws were developed to aid in childbirth
mx5LE TIL Canadian Indigenous incarceration rates are 10 times higher than the non-Indigenous population. Higher than South Africa at the height of apartheid. In Saskatchewan, if you’re Indigenous, you’re 33 times more likely to be incarcerated than than the non-Indigenous.
v84 TIL two girls in 1950’s New Zealand fell in love, but were separated by their parents for fear that they were homosexuals. Their solution? Kill their mom.
9YdM TIL British Columbia has the most ghost towns of any jurisdiction in North America, estimated at more than 1500